Fantasy Baseball Trends: Cain, Beltran, Lynn, Plouffe, and Dickey

Coming into the season, it was already clear that Matt Cain was the best starting pitcher in baseball to never reach 15 wins in a season. He averaged 13 wins over the last three seasons despite having an ERA less than three over that period. This year it looks like Cain is finally going to get the overdue respect he’s earned.

Whether it’s because of Tim Lincecum’s struggles, the 8-2 record, or the absurd 0.85 WHIP, Cain has shined bright this season and has become the clear ace for the Giants. Wednesday night was simply a celebration of that as he was not only perfect, but the accompanying 14 strikeouts tells you that he struck out the majority of the batters he faced. Best of all, his past tells us that Cain usually gets better in the second half of the season.

Year after year we see veteran players find their second winds in St. Louis. Well, you can add Carlos Beltran to the list that already includes such names as Larry Walker, Will Clark, Jim Edmonds, and more recently Lance Berkman. Beltran offered three hits on Wednesday including a solo shot, which would end up being the only run of the game.

His average is now at .298, which is not the biggest surprise, but the shock comes with the 19 home runs. The 35-year-old is on pace for a career high in home runs, perhaps up to 45. However, his pace is probably not sustainable because of the biggest threat of all: injuries.

Not many people have heard of Lance Lynn, but he is the lone reason that the Cardinals are competing despite the slow start from Adam Wainwright, who is rebounding from a missed season, plus the loss of Chris Carpenter due to an injury of his own. Lynn is a former first-round pick who showed some life in the bullpen a season ago, but no one predicted his performance this season. He is now 10-2 with a 2.42 ERA and has 23 strikeouts over the last two starts. Will he keep it up? The odds are against him. He is approaching 82 innings of work, which is a big boost from a season in which his innings were limited.

In his first two seasons, Trevor Plouffe was a disappointment with the Twins, but now he’s one of the hottest sluggers in baseball. Plouffe blasted his 11th home run on Wednesday, which was his sixth over the last 10 games. His average remains low, less than .240, but his power has more than made up for that. So is it sustainble? Probably not. We have never seen this type of power in the minor leagues and there isn’t really much else that he offers to fantasy managers.

The Mets have protested the official scoring of Dickey’s start on Wednesday night against the Rays with hopes that the one hit he surrendered will be called an error on David Wright. While it was Johan Santana who picked up the no-no a little while ago, the ace on this team is very much R.A. Dickey. Not only is he incredibly durable, which is often the case for knuckleballers, but he is also changing speeds from the 50s to the 80s and throwing strikes with his knuckleball, which is very rarely seen.

The big story this season is that Dickey has recently turned into a strikeout artist, and he did so again on Wednesday with 12 K’s. He is now 10-1 with a 2.20 ERA and 0.94 WHIP, and is looking like Roy Halladay at his best with the numbers that he’s posting. So is he really this good? Yes, he is very good and I do think he may be a top-five pitcher for the remainder of the season. His ERA has always been splendid with the Mets, as in sub-3, and now with the run support, he’s getting the much deserved wins. The only question is whether he will keep racking up the K’s, and so far, so good!

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